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The Dark Souls of the 8 and 16 bit eras?
- Thread starter wafflebrain
- Start date
I'm shocked no one has mentioned The Immortal. Or I missed it.
I mean it was instant death if you screwed up and lots of game mechanic s that had zero forgiveness like losing items forever if combined wrong.
Also fatal labyrinth is an honorable mention.
I mean it was instant death if you screwed up and lots of game mechanic s that had zero forgiveness like losing items forever if combined wrong.
Also fatal labyrinth is an honorable mention.
Yep, those fucking birds at the end. I don't know what drove me to stick with it to actually beat it, but I wouldn't have any of the patience to get half way through now days.
This bastard, cost me so many hours:
Alien Soldier is a freaking masterpiece everyone should experience at least once in their timeline. It has a very deep and skill-based combat system that makes it a perfect fit for this thread except for the sci-fi theme, so props for thinking outside the box.
To anyone that hasn't played it: imagine one of the top-tier dev teams made a fantastic Genesis / Mega Drive game that was lost to time. Imagine they scrapped everything, except for the spectacular final stage and boss that uses some of the most high-tech effects available to the Genesis. Now repeat that process 20-30 more times, then string all these final stages together in order of difficulty: that's Alien Soldier.
If you don't believe me, watch a longplay. Click on random places of the timeline and count how many times you get a screenshot that looks like the final boss for another game.
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What you are saying is true, but the way I compare it is by a scale that assumes the evolution of gameplay concepts/mechanics over time; sometimes even due to the technical limitations. To me it seems like that requirement of learning / remembering the level and enemy patterns, married to fast reflexes, is something that can be seen as contributing to what eventually became Dark Souls.
Also, it was one of those games of the time that did a pretty good job with level boss mechanics.
I'll admit though that I only have passing interest in the Souls games, so perhaps I'm missing something.
I like this. There's a lot of overlap in terms of skillset too, needing to memorize enemy behavior, environmental hazards, and knowing when it's wiser to just ignore stuff.
Dragon Slayer (series) - Wikipedia
All ARPGs were Souls in the 8bit days.
Battle of Olympus
Clash at Demonhead
Crystalis
Final Fantasy Adventure
Gargoyle's Quest series
Golvellius
Legacy of the Wizard
Legend of Zelda series
Maze of Galious
Monster Land series
Neutopia series
Rygar
Xak series
Xanadu series
Ys series
and tons more
Battle of Olympus
Clash at Demonhead
Crystalis
Final Fantasy Adventure
Gargoyle's Quest series
Golvellius
Legacy of the Wizard
Legend of Zelda series
Maze of Galious
Monster Land series
Neutopia series
Rygar
Xak series
Xanadu series
Ys series
and tons more
That's not what the OP was asking though. I'd argue that my two picks are about as hard as dark souls to finish, whereas the older games were just stupid punishing & not fair because they wanted to squeeze out gameplay time in these comparatively smaller games
Spiderman vs the Kingpin. If I recall, when you die, you have to repeat the entire game. I got to Kingpin but never beat him.
Having gone away from this thread, thought a bit and come back, I'm sticking with my original pick of Castlevania.
Specifically the first and third games, plus Rondo of Blood for the 16-bit flavour.
The thing about Dark Souls is that it's punishingly hard, but it's also fair in its own specific way. You have to become a master of a) the mechanics and b) memorisation of every single detail of each "level" and how you can approach it optimally. It's a gauntlet, but it hasn't been designed to be specifically impossible, it just requires trial and error.
Traditional Castlevania is the exact same. The game presents you with a path from A to B, and spreads out hazards and tough enemies liberally through, deliberately making you stop, think and plan. It's hard in the same way as Dark Souls - you're presented with a situation that seems unfair, but the levels are intricately designed to make them achievable if you have enough time to learn them.
Specifically the first and third games, plus Rondo of Blood for the 16-bit flavour.
The thing about Dark Souls is that it's punishingly hard, but it's also fair in its own specific way. You have to become a master of a) the mechanics and b) memorisation of every single detail of each "level" and how you can approach it optimally. It's a gauntlet, but it hasn't been designed to be specifically impossible, it just requires trial and error.
Traditional Castlevania is the exact same. The game presents you with a path from A to B, and spreads out hazards and tough enemies liberally through, deliberately making you stop, think and plan. It's hard in the same way as Dark Souls - you're presented with a situation that seems unfair, but the levels are intricately designed to make them achievable if you have enough time to learn them.
This looks pretty cool.
Reminds me of The Bastards Tale quite a bit
I do wonder who holds the rights to Moonstone these days..
Legend of Zelda II
Trying, patient, melee combat. Incredibly oppressive atmosphere. Esoteric game design. Brutal difficulty.
Trying, patient, melee combat. Incredibly oppressive atmosphere. Esoteric game design. Brutal difficulty.
I
Was at night tavern in Boston a couple years ago and they had altered beasts in the back by the bathrooms. On my way back to my table I stopped to play since it was free. Holy crap, good thing I didn't have to pay cause that wouldve cost a fortune to beat otherwise!Altered Beast. Probably more deaths than my first DS run lol
Great write up here...
Insane difficulty and joke endings - looking back at Altered Beast, 30 years later
As Sega classic Altered Beast celebrates its 30th birthday we look back at the divisive classicwww.gamesradar.com
Thankfully the game has so much severe slowdown that you can just dodge projectiles Matrix style.
Imagine hearing that soundtrack every time you go for a piss. Insanely jealous :D
I remember being utterly blown away by the graphics, and it's up there with Blood Money for difficulty!
Well, it is an earlier work from the same developers. Dark Souls is pretty much the successor of the King's Field games.
This is honestly true for a ton of games people claim are unfair. Many time they aren't, they just require more learning and recognition than other games. In genres like shmups learning patterns in tough games will translate to other games in that style too, just like learning how to play well in one Dark Souls game will help you in the other From games in that style.
Many of them aren't though, they are just more difficult. When we talk about unfair we'd have to go into some I Wanna Be The Guy fangame territory like BS, but even good players in that subgenre can hop game to game and do well.
Still easier than Gradius 3 Arcade proper.
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No mention of Kenseiden on the Sega Master System yet? (I guess it's more like Sekiro in theme). It's difficult, methodical, has defensive moves, and is focused on melee combat. It doesn't have experience points like Zelda 2 but if you fail the cruel bonus rounds to advance your character stats, you get sent back to the beginning.
Check it out. It's one of the best platform/adventure games of the 8-bit era.
Check it out. It's one of the best platform/adventure games of the 8-bit era.
Agree with this 1000%. Again, maybe its just because I grew up with NES "hard" games, but several that are viewed as hard listed in this thread to me, are merely what I'd consider normal difficulty - Turtles is the one that jumps out the most that confuses me - especially the Dam level - because before you tackle that you get the opportunity to get pizza that heals you pretty much 100%, and since you can enter back into the level from the exit and grab said health for each turtle real quick, you should be at full health x4 characters going into it. Learning the bomb pattern is just that - pattern memorisation (and something I'll probably never forget) and any tough obstacles... well you have four turtles so just swap if one runs low. And then you have the first stage in level 3 that has a half and full pizza in it so you can easily heal any wounds from the previous level and go about your way.
The hardest SNES game I can rmb was Hook. The game was crazy hard with the flying mechanic.
For NES, Castle Quest was hair tearing to play. The entire game is a bad controlling platform where you have to find keys and unlock doors/chests.
For NES, Castle Quest was hair tearing to play. The entire game is a bad controlling platform where you have to find keys and unlock doors/chests.
Old games were really made for arcade,
in the Arcade days, the point was to extract coins out of players.
From the latest NES Work gaiden by JeremyParish the point was to extract a coin EVERY 3 minutes.
So yeah games were HARD AS BALLS back then.
Like if you hadn't put a coin in the last 3 minutes then the designers didn't their jobs.
Or in layman's terms, games weren't long so they compensated by being hard and some compensated HARD.
And my pick would be Ghouls & Ghost and affiliated (like Gargoyle's Quest subseries that end with the majestic Demon Crest).
in the Arcade days, the point was to extract coins out of players.
From the latest NES Work gaiden by JeremyParish the point was to extract a coin EVERY 3 minutes.
So yeah games were HARD AS BALLS back then.
Like if you hadn't put a coin in the last 3 minutes then the designers didn't their jobs.
Or in layman's terms, games weren't long so they compensated by being hard and some compensated HARD.
And my pick would be Ghouls & Ghost and affiliated (like Gargoyle's Quest subseries that end with the majestic Demon Crest).
I think you're wrong about memorization. You don't have to memorize the particular level layouts at all; what you have to do is learn how the elements of the level behave, and plan your actions around that.
To more precise, both series are built around the deliberate use of high-commitment actions. There's no adjusting your trajectory once you've jumped in Castlevania, just like there's no interrupting your attack animation in Dark Souls. Playing well means observing your surroundings until you can to predict the right moment to take the right action, and then having the self-control to wait for that moment (Aaron Burr would have been great at both games). Memorizing the obstacles doesn't actually get you there, because you also have to use your understanding of your own constrained capabilities to plan around those obstacles. People run into trouble with Castlevania because they try to play it reactively instead of playing it deliberately, and then they get frustrated when they jump right into a Medusa's Head and blame it on the "bad controls".
Just played Super Metroid for the first time recently and I felt the same way. Even finding save rooms while exploring felt very souls like.
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It's funny, I feel the same way about some games I've beaten multiple times as a kid.
Dark Souls is practically Kirby compared to a lot of those old games
I'd say Zelda II, there's some similarity in the RPG elements at least. Zelda II is much more difficult though
I remember this game having great atmosphere and difficulty, not sure how it holds up.
Flashback (Another World) was also Soulsesque to me as I memorized every enemy location and had a hard time with it. Haven't played it in years so maybe I was just bad at the game! Way different atmosphere obviously
They've already been mentioned a thousand times but it's Castlevania and Mega Man. I got into both of those games because I loved Dark Souls and wanted something of similar design, and they definitely scratched that itch. Plus the music is incredible in both
Yeah that adds up.
Bastards Tale was alright. Pretty decent once you got the hang of it